Aging, Health Care, and Social Security: Three Essays

Reinhardt, U.E., Praag, B.M.S. van, & Wilensky, G.R. (1983). Aging, Health Care, and Social Security: Three Essays. IIASA Collaborative Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: CP-83-010

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Abstract

Low fertility levels in many countries are creating aging populations whose demands for health care and income maintenance (social security) will increase to unprecedented levels, thereby calling forth policies that will promote increased family care and worklife flexibility. The Population Program at IIASA is examining current patterns of population aging and changing life-styles, projecting the needs for health and income support that such patterns are likely to generate during the next several decades, and considering alternative family and employment policies that might reduce the social costs of meeting these needs.

The program is seeking to develop a better understanding of how fertility and mortality combine to create aging populations, with high demands for health and income maintenance, and reduced family support systems that can provide that maintenance. The research will produce analyses of current demographic patterns, primarily in IIASA countries, together with an assessment of their probable future societal consequences and impacts on the aging. It will consider the position of the elderly within changing family structures, review national policies that promote an enlarged role for family care, and examine the costs and benefits of alternative systems for encouraging worklife flexibility by transferring income between different periods of life.

The question of aging, health care, and social security was addressed in one of the sessions of a conference on health care in Moscow, organized by the Soviet Ministry of Health and IIASA. The three essays collected here were presented at that session. They deal with the rising cost of health care, using the United States as an example; the role social security plays in the economies of developed countries; and the impact of rapidly aging populations on public programs, particularly health care.

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